{"id":434437,"date":"2026-02-19T16:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434437\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T16:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:11:11","slug":"what-carlos-alcarazs-opponent-told-him-at-the-net-after-qatar-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/434437\/","title":{"rendered":"What Carlos Alcaraz’s opponent told him at the net after Qatar win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have been sent a tongue-in-cheek warning by ATP rival Valentin Royer.<\/p>\n

Seven-time Grand Slam winner Alcaraz<\/a> and four-time major champion Sinner have dominated men\u2019s tennis the past two years as they have shared the last nine majors, each won four ATP Masters 1000 events and alternated at No 1 of the ATP Rankings.<\/p>\n

The chasing pack have been well adrift with Novak Djokovic the best of the rest<\/a> with the likes of Alexander Zverev, Lorenzo Musetti, Alex de Minaur, Taylor Fritz, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Ben Shelton the other challengers.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz took his unbeaten run to the start of 2026 to 9-0 as he followed up his maiden title at the Australian Open<\/a> with wins over Arthur Rinderknech and Royer.<\/p>\n

After beating Royer 6-2, 7-5, there was a nice exchange between the Spaniard and Frenchman at the net.<\/p>\n

World No 60 Royer told Alcaraz: \u201cI\u2019ll come to [for] you and Jannik, don\u2019t worry. Some day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world No 1 replied: \u201cI will wait for you, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

ATP News<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s coach praised by Spanish former top-10 star he used to work with<\/a><\/p>\n

How much prize money have Alcaraz, Djokovic, Sinner, de Minaur & Shelton earned in 2026?<\/a><\/p>\n

The 24-year-old Frenchman certainly had his chances in the second set as he broke in game four and came out to serve for the set at 5-3, but the Spaniard broke back and, after holding serve, claimed another break before serving out the match.<\/p>\n

When asked if he was worried, Alcaraz replied: \u201cObviously I had to be prepared for everything. There were some moments when I thought about a third set, I\u2019m not going to lie, but obviously it was just a small place in my mind that was thinking that. The rest was working to find solutions, to find the right way again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just really pleased and really happy I was able to find good rhythm again, and good tennis. It\u2019s just about fighting. I know tennis. It\u2019s just about one point, and sometimes it is really difficult to close out the set or the match. I just had to stay there, and I\u2019m happy I turned it around and got the win in straight sets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up next is the seventh seed Karen Khachanov in the quarter-final, and if he gets through that, he will face either fifth seed Andrey Rublev or Stefanos Tsitispas in the semi-final with Sinner a projected final opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone thinks we should play in every final in every tournament, but that\u2019s very difficult to achieve. There are many players who want to beat us,\u201d Alcaraz said about a possible final against Sinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have been sent a tongue-in-cheek warning by ATP rival Valentin Royer. Seven-time Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-434437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}